


Mother

by DaiseeChain



Series: The Elementals [1]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-17
Updated: 2010-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-01 18:30:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaiseeChain/pseuds/DaiseeChain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luna tends her garden as she nurtures her family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother

**Author's Note:**

> **Written For:** [Crucio](http://community.livejournal.com/hp_uk_meetup)  
>  **Recipient:** [](http://accioscar.livejournal.com/profile)[**accioscar**](http://accioscar.livejournal.com/)  
>  **Element:** Earth  
> 

 

 

 

She watched as it squirmed on its way, then wiped the slime from her hands and onto her dungarees, leaving swatches of bright silver glinting in the cold light. Other people used copper on slugs, she knew, but Luna preferred to just move them on. Slugs were okay. They didn’t bite or sting or gossip and they ate whatever was around. They were useful even if they looked a bit odd. People could be funny about things that looked a bit odd.

A zephyr moved through the trees, and she watched its wings as it zipped through the branches, rattling the leaves. The movement allowed the weak sun through, painting the ground around her with the dapplings of spring. Spots of shadow moved across her pale feet, and she wriggled her toes to shift the patterns. Laughter welled up and she let it loose; it seemed churlish to hold it back on such a beautiful day. Clenching and unclenching her feet, she squished cold, damp, crumbly earth between her toes, then got down on her hands and knees and rubbed some of the dirt in her palms. Heady with notes of moss and daffodils, it smudged cocoa-coloured stains on her hands and under her fingernails. Perfect. It was absolute perfection. The oak would grown strong in this soil, and the primroses, gladioli, and witch hazel delight in its nourishing offerings.

“Mama! Mama!”

Kneeling, she lifted her arms up to the sky then let them fall on the shoulders of the twins as they scrambled around her. She kissed them; Lorcan first today, then Lysander. Tomorrow it would be the other way around to be fair. “Did you have a good day?”

“Yes!” Lorcan hefted a bunch of weeds at her. “I grew mandrakes!”

Luna frowned. “I’m not sure Grandfather should be teaching you about mandrakes just yet.” She peered closer at the plants he was proudly holding up for her inspection, and laughed. “Although it possibly won’t hurt just his once.” The ‘mandrakes’ were carrots.

“Never mind him!” Lysander said. “I found a crumpled hornsnack!”

Now that was a turn up for the books. She wondered that her father hadn’t owled her the news already.

Lorcan reached across her lap and shoved Lysander’s shoulder. “You did not!” He turned his earnest face to hers. “It was just a snail.”

Ah.

“Well it could have been a hornsnack,” Lysander sniffed. “They can disguise themselves, you know.”

“Indeed they can,” she said, smiling. She ruffled his hair. “You should probably go inside and get changed. Your Father will be home soon.”

“Oh, Muuuuum!” Lorcan pouted. “It’s so nice out here. Why can’t we stay out?”

She kissed his forehead. “Because it’s past your teatime. Are you not hungry yet?”

“No,” said Lysander, just as his stomach let out a growl the like of which she hadn’t heard since she’d last worn her Gryffindor supporters’ hat.

Squeezing them both to her, she nuzzled their hair, only letting go when they squealed that they were far too old for that kind of thing, thank you! As she released them they sprang away - like jacks-in-boxes - and ran, yelling at the top of their lungs, in through the back door. She watched them go, shaking her head when they failed to stop and wipe their feet. The noise didn’t stop; it simply moved further into the house, where at length it was joined by a third voice, rich as the earth on which she now sat.

The trowel was warm and smooth in her hand as she picked it up and began digging. He would come to see her when he was ready.

She had planted three of the lettuce plugs before a long shadow fell over her and she looked up, shielding her eyes against the low-setting sun. It was difficult to see him in silhouette, but he was still worth watching even now. Tall and strong as a poplar, growing in adverse conditions. He needed time to recover after replanting, but then he would be better than ever.

She wondered if he might go inside again without speaking, as he had done for several weeks now.

“The garden looks good.” He turned his head this way and that as he took it in.

“Very few nargles this year. It’s been good for the ground.” She dropped her gaze from him, as it seemed to make him uncomfortable. “How was work today?”

“Good, good.” He sighed. “Actually, I have a problem.”

“Oh?”

“I’m having a little difficulty classifying the taxa of a new sub-species of gnome discovered in Mrs Flitwick’s garden.”

“Gnomes are notoriously difficult.” She pulled listlessly at a little blue flower that was growing where it oughtn’t.

He sighed again, then dropped his briefcase. It landed with a soft thud creating a little eddy making rather a mess of the neat pile of weeds she had cleared. He followed the bag to the ground, plonking himself on top of it; sitting cross-legged and clutching the side of the briefcase rather harder than was strictly necessary in order to stay on what was, effectively, a three inch tall ledge. “The gnome is not the difficulty.”

“No?”

“The difficulty is with me.”

Now that he was at her level his face was no longer silhouetted and she could make out the slight tightness to his unshaven jaw, the deep lines around his mouth, and the sadness in his eyes. She studied his face carefully, uncertain how often she would see it again. Differing schedules meant that days could pass with barely a word between them. Sleeping in separate rooms now wasn’t helping. He glanced around the ground in his vicinity, and reached out his fingers to let them dally in the lately disturbed weeds.

She thought she knew what this was about. “It’s okay, you know.”

“It is?”

“Yes,” she nodded evenly. “You are still allowed to look at me. Even if I look odd to you now.”

He looked up sharply, mouth open as if a great noise of surprise had escaped him. But there was no noise. There was only the silence. His hand clenched the weeds, crushing the little blue flowers.

“I’m sorry if I make you feel funny, but I won’t always. I remember when Ma died. Looking at Father made me feel funny for weeks, but I just kept looking anyway. Eventually the feeling goes away.” She shrugged. “Most feelings do.”

She went back to digging a hole for the next lettuce. “The boys are happy today.”

“Are they?” From the corner of her eye she saw him look distractedly up at the second floor, where the sounds of shouting and the maid running to - or possibly away from - something the boys had done in high-spirits, came drifting out of an open window.

“Yes. People are usually happy when there’s sunshine.” She sat the lettuce plug carefully in the hole, then pushed dirt in around it to keep it stable. She could have used the trowel, but just now she preferred to use her hands. “And they have each other. And that’s all people really need, is other people.”

He smiled at that. She didn’t need to see him to know he was smiling. He just was.

“I forget sometimes,” he said, and he moved off the briefcase to kneel on the ground next to her, “how much more you’ve already been through than most people our age.”

“That’s okay. I can remember for both of us.” She handed him the trowel. “Can you dig the next hole, please?” It wasn’t really a question, but it was good to be polite.

He turned the trowel around in his large, calloused hand. “You do realise we can just blast little holes out of the ground, right?” But he dug it by hand anyway.

“Yes. But that wouldn’t be kind. And Mother Earth can do with a bit of kindness right now. She’s had a very hard winter. We should let her rest a bit.”

He stopped digging and looked at her. “Yes,” he said, but it came out sounding a bit odd. “We should.”

She felt a weight settle on her shoulder and turned her head to see that it was his hand reaching out to rest on her. She smiled at him. He smiled in return. She liked to see him smile. It lit up his whole face, not just his eyes, as on some people. Then the weight was gone and he concentrated on digging. She smiled again, although this time it might have been a little at him rather than with him, if she was honest with herself. For a naturalist, he was never very easy working with hand tools. The dirt was flung away from under his hands in great clumps, firing this way and that. His tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth just a little, as it did when he was thinking on a very serious classification project, but she knew he was just focussing on digging the best hole possible. Men were often very good at that, she thought.

She concentrated her own self on patting down the lettuce plug, then giving it some water and a bit of food, to make sure it would be happy in its new home. Once Rolf had declared the new hole finished, she shuffled him along, then settled in front of it to dig in the next plug. The continued like that until all 30 lettuce were planted. Neither said anything, but it was the best time Luna could remember them having together in months. It was nice, having her best friend back, especially as he was enjoying this too much to worry that he now had dirt all over his best suit.

The last lettuce bedded in, he stood, brushed off some of the bigger clumps clinging to him, and held out his hand to help her up. She was perfectly able to stand on her own, but she thought it might mean something to him if she accepted his help, so she did. They stood for a while in silent contemplation of the beauty of salad greens. He didn’t let go of her hand.

Eventually the sun dipped to that point below the clouds where it becomes brilliant and beautiful again just before it leaves for the night, so she tugged his hand. He began to head for the house, but came to a sharp halt when she moved in the other direction. “Shouldn’t we be getting inside? It is a bit cold now and the boys really need some advice.” The maid’s shrieking could be either laughter or terror. Difficult to tell from this distance.

“In a moment. Let’s go this way first.” She tugged his hand again.

He looked down the length of the garden in confusion. The moment he understood showed plainly on his face. “Are you certain?”

She nodded. “Yes.” She squeezed his hand. “It’s time.”

This time he didn’t resist as she towed him gently behind her past the raised carrot bed and the place of herbs, past the swing hanging off the branch of the apple tree which was now heavy with pink blossom, past the shed where he pottered on secret projects, then her shed where she made pottery, until finally they stood in front of the oak, its wide branches covered in emerald green; as precious as that which lay underneath in its care.

She stopped and he came to a halt gently behind her, bobbing along uncertainly in her wake. As she let go of his hand she sensed him stiffen slightly, scared of this new development and unsure how to proceed. She knelt in front of the plaque and twisted to look at him. “It’s okay. We’re allowed to be sad. We don’t have to pretend we’re not.” Then she untwisted and waited patiently in front of the tiny marble sculpture, kneeling forever for when she herself could not be there. She brushed some dirt gently from its wings.

She watched the angel, waiting patiently as it, till at length he sank to his knees next to her and put his head on her shoulder. “I miss her,” was all he said.

She tilted her head and dropped a kiss on top of his, awkwardly given the angle, but that too, was fitting. “I know. I do, too.”

“I don’t think the boys remember her.”

“They do. Lorcan comes down here sometimes, to be with her, and Lysander occasionally forgets and makes arrangements for five of us.”

Rolf recoiled, as if hexed. “No!”

She reached out for his hand. “It’s okay. It’s normal. After the war we all spent weeks talking about our friends as if they were going to pop their heads around the door any minute.” She let her mind wander back. “Colin, particularly, I remember we all expected to turn up and blind us with his camera. He was always there wherever we went, so we always somehow thought he would be.”

He shook his head. “You’ve been through too much, my eclair de lune.”

Smiling at his pet name for her, she said, “No. I’ve been through exactly the right amount.” She looked at him, wondering if he would understand. “And I’ll see them all again. They’re not lost to me forever; just for the moment.”

He was searching her eyes for some answer, so she held his gaze, willing him to understand that this was just the way the world was. People were beautiful and brief and it was best just to enjoy them for whatever time you were given with them.

He nodded slowly, then turned his face to the tiny grave. “I shall look forward to seeing her again. Four days just wasn’t enough.”

“No, it certainly wasn’t as long as I had hoped to spend with her either.”

At that he moved over and put his arms around her completely. She closed her eyes, revelling in the sensation of him being so close again. He pressed his face against her neck.

“Are we going to be okay?”

She paused, thinking this over. “Yes, I think we are. Although it would be better if you didn’t spend quite so much time at the office. The rest of us are still alive, and we still need you.”

There was a shivering movement, and wetness on her collarbone. He was crying. She didn’t say anything, just squeezed his hand tighter. After a while the shuddering subsided and he muttered a ‘Sorry’ into her neck.

“You needn’t be sorry. It’s perfectly natural. And we are naturalists, are we not?”

A small snort from him told her he understood her joking irony, which was nice. A lot of people didn’t. Even her friends.

He pulled back a little from her, which was a little relieving as her knees were beginning to complain about the added weight, but she hadn’t wanted to complain. He’d needed this.

“C’mon,” he said, leaning on her shoulder to push himself off the ground. “We really should be getting back. Who knows what the twins have-”

There was a loud explosion, and the sound of shattering glass.

“Oh dear,” was all she could think to say. She watched him sprinting up the garden to deal with this new emergency and turned back to murmur an apology to their daughter. “We’ll be back soon. I think I can safely say we are over the worst now, but we do still miss you terribly.” She reached up and patted the nearest branch of the oak. “Thank you for keeping watch over her.”

The dryad at the heart stepped out briefly and gave her a curt nod. She nodded in return, and it stepped back into the safety of the tree. Then she bent, placed a kiss on her fingers, and transferred it to the angel, which tilted its head briefly to look at her and smile gently before returning to its vigil.

Behind her, the sounds of her family busily living drifted down with the wind. She hugged herself, and trudged to rejoin them, truly content for the first time in months. The long hard winter was over. Spring had finally arrived.


End file.
